Special-needs benefit claimants die waiting for payments

Archie Mitchell and Albert Toth, The Independent

More than 1,000 sick and special-needs benefit claimants died while waiting to receive vital payments last year, The Independent can reveal, laying bare the crisis in the welfare system. Department for Work and Pensions figures show that between November 2023 and October 2024, 900,000 people applied for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefits — the main support for those with an illness, disability or mental health condition. Applicants faced an average wait of almost four months to have their claims processed — but 1,300 died before receiving a final decision, figures released under Freedom of Information laws show. It comes as Rachel Reeves plans to slash the welfare bill by up to £5bn in her spring Budget and force people back to work, with reports on Friday suggesting the majority of the cuts will fall on those claiming PIP benefits.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said the number of claimants dying before receiving payments was “an absolute scandal”, while campaigners warned the figures are just the “tip of the iceberg”. And the findings have sparked a fresh backlash against the chancellor’s planned benefit cuts within her own party, with Labour MPs warning they risk lengthening delays in the under-pressure system “denying vital support to those who need it most”. Claimed by 3.6 million people, PIP is worth up to £184.30 a week and is designed to help with extra living costs for those with a long-term physical or mental illness that affects their ability to do everyday tasks or get around. One man, 40, from Northern Ireland, who first applied for PIP in June 2022 is still waiting for the benefit. Despite being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome caused by an underactive thyroid, the man, who wished to remain anonymous, was told he didn’t qualify and had his appeal rejected.

“During that time, to be honest at times I’d lost hope. I felt that my body was failing me, and I felt like I actually wasn’t being believed,” he told The Independent. In August 2024, a tribunal ruled he should be reassessed but more than half a year later, he’s still waiting to be seen. Further statistics show the poor levels of customer service faced by applicants, with one claimant last year kept on hold by the DWP for six hours and 48 minutes before their phone call was answered. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said the union had “repeatedly warned” the DWP there was a staffing crisis that would have consequences for its workers delivering the benefit and those claiming it but “they failed to take action”.

“By targeting the most vulnerable in society with £5bn of cuts to the welfare system, ministers will be removing vital safety nets for people with disabilities and health conditions, allowing them to slip through the sort of safety net that every decent society should provide,” she added. The SNP said the UK government “has been failing special-needs people for decades now and these findings are the latest proof that their delays are putting lives at risk”.

“These figures must now be the long-overdue wake-up call that the DWP needs to finally get a grip with the problem of long delays and backlogs when processing applications,” the party’s social justice spokesperson Kirsty Blackman told The Independent. She added: “These revelations should also act as a stark warning to the chancellor ahead of the forthcoming spring statement of the real dangers of a return to Labour austerity.” Mikey Erhardt, of Disability Rights UK, said the figures were “shocking” and showed “how much the PIP system is failing to deliver and are just the tip of the iceberg”. Mr Erhardt added: “PIP decision delays leave many thousands of special-needs people waiting months for vital support. Poor decision-making then leads to even more months of delay waiting for appeals to be heard — of which around 70 per cent are successful. “The government needs to prioritise giving additional capacity to DWP, to process new claims and review existing ones, in a timely way.” The shocking figures come ahead of the chancellor’s spring statement this month, in which she has hinted she will cut billions from Britain’s welfare bill under reforms that will give people “support to get back to work”. But the party has not ruled out that the changes could extend to PIP. Demonstrating the rift within Labour over the planned cuts, left-wing Labour MP Brian Leishman urged Ms Reeves not to break a promise that there would be “no return to austerity under Labour”.

He told The Independent: “It’s in our party’s DNA to create a compassionate caring society that looks after those most in need and the recent talk of ‘ruthless cuts’ to welfare and labelling people as ‘shirkers’ or ‘scroungers’ is appalling.” “Fourteen years of Tory austerity has been the cause of hundreds of thousands of excess deaths in the UK and cuts to welfare are more of the same.” And Labour MP Kim Johnson told The Independent: “Cuts risk worsening these delays and denying vital support to those who need it most. This is a false economy — pushing vulnerable people further into hardship only increases pressure on other public services. “Instead of making ‘tough choices’ that harm the special-needs and impoverished, we should instead focus on making the wealthiest pay their fair share.”